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With respect to the last, the grandest of all human undertakings, it is to be remembered that Catholicism had irrevocably committed itself to the dogma of a flat earth, with the sky as the floor of heaven, and hell in the under-world.
The priests who fulfilled their office here wore masks like the divinities of the under-world. Many were the representatives of Anubis, with the jackal-head, assisted by boys with masks of the so-called child-Horus. At the head of each mummy stood or squatted a wailing-woman with the emblems of Nephthys, and one at its feet with those of Isis.
The house, withal, seemed immense, the scale of space again inordinate; the open rooms, to no one of which his eyes deflected, gloomed in their shuttered state like mouths of caverns; only the high skylight that formed the crown of the deep well created for him a medium in which he could advance, but which might have been, for queerness of colour, some watery under-world.
"Then, first I will drag him down to the greatest of all beasts, he who waits to devour evil-doers in the Under-world, be they kings or slaves," and he stretched out his long arms and made a motion as of clutching a man by the throat. "Oh! have no fear, Master, I can break him like a stick, and afterwards we will talk the matter over among the dead, for I shall swallow my tongue and die also.
"Aye, a strange and an old, forged far away, says Zikali, by a warrior-wizard hundreds of years ago, a great fighter who was also the first of smiths and who sits in the Under-world waiting for it to return to his hand when its work is finished beneath the sun. That will be soon, Macumazahn, since Zikali told me that I am the last Holder of the Axe." "Did you then see the Opener-of-Roads?"
Here the grey limestone breaks through the vegetation more and more, for the line is approaching the lofty stony plateau of the Karst, and enormous heaps of débris accentuate the position of the numerous quarries. They are very extensive, going far into the rock, which is also pierced by many great hollows, like entrances to an unknown under-world.
"And if you die first," said the woman, "she will follow you afterwards to the under-world, and see through you there." "That will be less dangerous," said the shoemaker laughing, "for then I shall be glorified too, and shall know all about her past life. That will not all be white paper either, and if she throws a shoe at me I will fling the last at her."
And with Count Anteoni and the priest she set another figure, that of the sand-diviner, whose tortured face had suggested a man looking on a fate that was terrible. Had not he, too, warned her? Had not the warning been threefold, been given to her by the world, the Church, and the under-world the world beneath the veil? She met Androvsky's eyes. He was getting up to leave the room.
The Jenisons and their friends formed one contingent, while the other was made up from that shifting, stealthy element of humanity known as the "under-world." pickpockets, cracksmen and ne'er-do-wells who had been the associates of Dick Cronk in one way or another, off and on, for years.
Oh! without a doubt it was over; she was dead, and these dreams and memories were such as come to the dwellers in the Under-world. Only then why did she hear the sound of lapping water, and of dipping oars? Very slowly she opened her eyes, for Tua greatly feared what she might see. Light flowed upon her, the light of the moon which hung in a clear sky like some great lamp of gold.
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